A whole month just flew by.
Day 36: Wed., 7/30
- Mah Jong day! We, being a culturally comprehensive class, decided to learn mah jong. Well, half the class learned; the other half got right to it.
- Now every time somebody "pong"s the card, I'm seeing "PWN!" in my head.
- We kind of anglicized it.
- Drew trees in Chinese painting class. You do a whole bunch of dots, draw branches, let it dry, blot it all into one connecty mess again, and draw a few lines of grass at the base to ensure a lack of floatage.
Day 37: Thurs., 7/31
- Final exams!
-...were alright.
- Tai chi - more translating, more shifting of strength/weight/chi/The Force; can now defend my self against guys who try to attack me by 1) trying to capture me by hugging, 2) leaving their toes vulnerable for stomping, or 3) attempting a slow, ponderous sidekick. [As in a kick that goes sideways, not a glorified minion.]
- We celebrated after class by going to the South Park area, which is actually just a wide strip of shops with an outdoor sitting plaza-esque area, and lots of Shin Kong Mitsukoshi-ish malls and shops. Had some food (there's no way to go wrong with won-ton soup. Well, at least where we ate. It was really good, anyway.)
- Went to the massive arcade level and spent a bunch of cents playing air hockey and video games and weird basketball throwing games which are actually very good for developing arm strength. I definitely felt my lack of arm strength after one round.
- Did a huge group photo-booth picture; they call them "da tou tie" or "big head sticker", literally translated, here. You go in front of a green screen, pick your background colors and whatnot, then you get to edit it (draw funky neon lines, add words, whatever) and choose your size and print out a sheet of the photobooth pictures in sticker form.
- That's more arcade-ing than I think I've ever done in my life.
- Went shopping round the other streets for a bit, looking at various electronics and memorabilia and standout deals. A lot of the smaller shops straight-out tell you that their value is in their service, not their awesome prices. Those places have been around forever, and are great for those who live a bike ride away, but not as much use to the once-in-ten-years traveler.
- That said, most places can definitely perform basic services for free if you just ask. (My only experiences fall in the 'adding additional chain to a necklace' and fixing glasses [and gifting you cases and cleaning cloths, yay] and watches range, though.)
Day 38: Fri., 8/1
- Last day of class:
- Sang a bunch of popular Chinese songs.
- Went out as a class, along with both teachers, to the little soup dumpling place that is all kinds of awesome. On Dong-an Road for anyone who ever treks to Tainan and wants some great food, albeit a tad pricier.
- Ended up playing rounds of mah-jong together till 5pm (skipping calligraphy) and then saying our goodbyes.
- Aww. Goodbye people I'll never see again unless I visit Russia or Hong Kong or Australia or Canada (again) or Japan (later) or Taiwan (again, again) or other states in the U.S.A...
- It was a great program and a great class, anyway.
- We have a slideshow our teacher put together for us that's pretty cute though, so I'll never have to forget what everyone's...made-up Chinese names are. Or what they look like. Not that I would've, especially with the ones with Facebook.
- I'll stop here and just say I'll miss Cheng Kung University and all the friendly people.
- Went out to get a haircut after (friend of the family hair-stylist, and therefore a better deal) and loved the whole hair-washing/massage thing that always costs extra in the U.S. and therefore never do. Also enjoyed the ability to actually seem to communicate my thoughts to the hair stylist, considering most haircuts end up with me doing weird hand gestures and trying to guess how many inches I want off.
- It went smoothly anyway, and the price was all kinds of awesome.
- I'll now drop my general silent comparison of haircut-getting and dentist visits. (Dentists seem to feel that you should be able to answer their questions when your mouth is full of pointy metal things and spit. It's the whole feeling painfully misunderstood during the process, but ending up a bit healthier and shinier at the very end thing.)
Day 39: Sat., 8/2
- Went to a restaurant that is historically themed, with old-style school desks pushed together as the tables, all intact with the chalky line down the middle of each desk that would separate the boy from the girl, since boys always sat next to girls, and the girls were supposed to be all "Hey, you can't cross this line!"
- The fire alarm went off, demonstrating the wonder of fire exits, as everyone rushed to the front door despite many back and side exits.
- Fine, I did it too. But I was facing the front, so technically...
- Well, it was a false alarm.
- Then it went off again, and no one moved.
- Also a false alarm. Apparently the dishwashing takes place within an elbow-knocking distance of the fire alarm?
- The tofu happened to be a bit sour, so they made it up to us with free desserts.
- Really, all in all, it was a pretty cool restaurant, though.
Day 40: Sun., 8/3
- Finished the 1,000 piece puzzle my cousins and I have been working on for around 3 days (with a long hiatus between the first day and this weekend).
- Let's not speak of the cheating.
- Anyway, it's a pretty view of the Manhattan Bridge.
- Packed, packed, bought some bread, played some badminton, packed, ate some bread, ate some fruit, packed...
- Last day in Tainan!
Now leaving for Kyushu, Japan! Southwest island area, birthplace of porcelain, home of hot springs and, well, a lot of things.
Laptop-less till Aug.10, when I get back; will update then.
Sayonara!
Monday, August 4, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Days of Tainan (Week Three)
Tainan, even compared to the rest of Taiwan, is really food central. The joke here seems to be that if you close your eyes while walking, every 5 seconds you can look up and still see a food place right there. The other joke is that dating prospects here are pretty much the exact opposite.
Commence Week the Third:
Day 29: Wed., 7/23
- Learned to draw rocks in Chinese painting. Just remember: for rock texture, draw your ridges from the rock's outside edge inward and upwards at a 45+ degree slant, then shade the sides of your ridges in correspondence to the side of the rock its on. Shade the bottom of the rock darker, and lightly brush in the rest. If doing multiple rocks, be bold with your shadowing.
- Angle it a bit, pencil in some distant birds, and it becomes a mountain.
- Because who really cares about a rock?
- Played some frisbee, just to get in a real college campus feel.
- Had some really good green pea soup from a famed Tainan green pea soup place. It had jellyish things (think bubbletea bubbles, but clear) that looked exactly like ice cubes, and every time I scooped one I felt like I was getting some kind of bonus, because it was like having an edible gummy ice cube.
Day 30: Thurs., 7/24
- Half the class was out this morning, whether interviewing or gone or sleeping in.
- Decided to go my own way for lunch, since I was craving the kong pao chicken fried rice from last time. Also got a coke there, except that it was in a glass bottle and quickly became an insurmountable challenge. The nice lady who was really busy nevertheless saw me struggling and taught me how to use a bottle cap opener. Yeepers.
- Learned some Chinese idioms, slang, vernacular whatnot. Here's some vaguely English ones:
520 = "I love you."
K = "to read", or "to hit."
LKK = "old-timer"
LBT= person who wears brand-name clothes
- Second half of class was spent learning Chinese chess. One hour is not enough for one game, but at that point we were reduced to me moving my knight and him moving his king away, me moving my knight, him moving his king away, wash, rinse, repeat.
- Went to tai chi. Here's the latest translation snippet:
Teacher: "Ni bu yao zen de zho se ge dong zhua [does elbow-heart-stabbing thing on someone's shoulder]...in we hwe zang zen tu shue."
Me: "Don't try this actual move on someone's heart...because they'll probably start coughing up blood."
Classmate: "Can you show us that thing with the elbow again?"
Me [to the teacher]: "Ni ke yi zai ge wo men can ne ge...elbow...dong zhua ma?"
Teacher: "Uh..."
Me: "Elbow. [pointing at elbow]. Zai yi tsi."
Teacher: "Oh! Hoa! [proceeds to demonstrate scary elbow move on Classmate]"
Classmate: [frowns and backs away]
- Sigh.
- Went to check out that huge other department store thing (it's this huge cylindrical blue building you can see from just about everywhere), and found out that it only goes to, oh, 6 floors, and the other 10 or 20 or whatever are completely useless because of some money conflict from some time back. It looks like some giant landmark building and is a complete waste.
- All of the reconstruction around here is seeming a bit redundant. They tore up a whole stretch of university sidewalk the other day. The only thing I can see happening is it being replaced by a slightly redder, brickier sidewalk.
Day 31: Fri., 7/25
- Biked to school, learned a few Chinese-netspeak additions (5201314 = I love you forever; OTR = head-meet-floor, or OTH. I feel like I should know this. I love making little people out of letters).
- Had an egg-covered curry rice for lunch. A lot of dishes here involve throwing an egg over everything. Then again, the eggs are the freshest of eggs. Most are sitting out in boxes; they don't need to be refrigerated because they never even went through that step. Straight from the market. The 'early market', as opposed to the 'night market', is where you get all your fresh produce; veggies, fruits, maybe even a great deal on a shirt or two.
- Improved my calligraphy a bit.
- Had dinner at the in-hospital restaurant. Excellent meal.
- Biked home. I'm getting better at dodging cars and not being freaked out by motorcycles squeezing past impossible spaces, and managed to get home surprisingly fast.
- That doesn't actually help me, since it was recently pointed out to me that eating one thing of bread (best breakfast food ever, still) takes 20 mins. of biking to burn off.
Day 32: Sat., 7/26
- Had a relaxing day, went to an afternoon market (these are on weekends, in the same place as the night markets, except you can get flowers and other foodstuffs), swim-cap buying (the hair-covering thingers are required before entering public pools), swimming (apparently the pool/area has been renovated a lot recently, it was really nice), going out to a Japanese restaurant, bit of rain, typhoon warning again...
Day 33: Sun., 7/27
- Visited a cemetery of sorts, weaving through huge stone monument-like dedications to the deceased, along with rows of smaller polished stone tombs to get to my grandparents' tomb.
- Found my name etched on the back, along with the rest of the family's.
- Got a first-time look at my mom's parents in the photos on the stone.
- I'm seeing a definite parallel with the stone used in these cemeteries and the reflective stone of that Vietnam veterans memorial.
- Went to Evergarden for dinner, a restaurant in a hotel building, then wandered around to some performance building near it. Saw a poster; Paul Potts will be here!
- ...In October.
- While my aunt and uncle hurried back to watch Fantastic Four ("It's 9:00! buy some popcorn, let's get back!"), I filmed my cousins doing reenactments of Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog.
- It's plain to see...the evil inside of me....is on the rise. Sorry, can't help myself. It won't get out of my head.
- Ended the day finding out tomorrow has been announced as a national 'typhoon day', kind of like a snow day, with all schools and offices and whatnot closing until further notice.
Day 34: Mon., 7/28
- Typhoon Day; outside of gusty rainy wind, Tainan wasn't hit too badly, so we mini-roadtripped to Kaohsiung, a big tourist hit for their national park land and beaches and markets and closeness to Taiwan's southernmost point.
- We went to the Dream Mall, which has a big TV screen installed in the side of the building and a ferris wheel on the roof (the woes of visiting on a rainy day means we only got to stare up at it from beneath the glass ceiling.
- Went to IKEA, which wasn't too different from my IKEA visits in Taoyuan, except that there was a huge sale going on.
- Went to Costco. Filled to the rafters with shoppers and not-so-filled with samples. The few samples there were required lining up; and the lines were long.
- So we lined up.
- And got our little dried seaweed wrapped bit of rice, and bought a box of Costco muffins (only difference being that one of the main flavors here is almond-mango).
- Other differences: the Costco here is two stories and the little eating area doesn't sell churros and pizza.
Day 35: Tues., 7/29
- Back to class, in which I learned that we'd be having final exams, a transcript, and a mini going-away party.
- Other things I learned include the following:
> KTV (karaoke) hangouts are the main party place. Most have adhered-to guidelines that make it non-negatively-connoted, especially to parents. [The thought of rephrasing that brings loopy ropes to mind, so use your powers of selective reading.]
> Bars/pubs are hangouts for tired old people.
> College girls who smoked were considered progressive.
> College guys who smoked were considered people to stay away from.
> Public smoking is less of an issue now, what with the $2000NT per smoke fine if you're reported smoking by anyone.
We're also away from the social pressure of saying "Bless you" here. A sneeze is just a sneeze.
Things are good.
Last three days of class coming up.
Commence Week the Third:
Day 29: Wed., 7/23
- Learned to draw rocks in Chinese painting. Just remember: for rock texture, draw your ridges from the rock's outside edge inward and upwards at a 45+ degree slant, then shade the sides of your ridges in correspondence to the side of the rock its on. Shade the bottom of the rock darker, and lightly brush in the rest. If doing multiple rocks, be bold with your shadowing.
- Angle it a bit, pencil in some distant birds, and it becomes a mountain.
- Because who really cares about a rock?
- Played some frisbee, just to get in a real college campus feel.
- Had some really good green pea soup from a famed Tainan green pea soup place. It had jellyish things (think bubbletea bubbles, but clear) that looked exactly like ice cubes, and every time I scooped one I felt like I was getting some kind of bonus, because it was like having an edible gummy ice cube.
Day 30: Thurs., 7/24
- Half the class was out this morning, whether interviewing or gone or sleeping in.
- Decided to go my own way for lunch, since I was craving the kong pao chicken fried rice from last time. Also got a coke there, except that it was in a glass bottle and quickly became an insurmountable challenge. The nice lady who was really busy nevertheless saw me struggling and taught me how to use a bottle cap opener. Yeepers.
- Learned some Chinese idioms, slang, vernacular whatnot. Here's some vaguely English ones:
520 = "I love you."
K = "to read", or "to hit."
LKK = "old-timer"
LBT= person who wears brand-name clothes
- Second half of class was spent learning Chinese chess. One hour is not enough for one game, but at that point we were reduced to me moving my knight and him moving his king away, me moving my knight, him moving his king away, wash, rinse, repeat.
- Went to tai chi. Here's the latest translation snippet:
Teacher: "Ni bu yao zen de zho se ge dong zhua [does elbow-heart-stabbing thing on someone's shoulder]...in we hwe zang zen tu shue."
Me: "Don't try this actual move on someone's heart...because they'll probably start coughing up blood."
Classmate: "Can you show us that thing with the elbow again?"
Me [to the teacher]: "Ni ke yi zai ge wo men can ne ge...elbow...dong zhua ma?"
Teacher: "Uh..."
Me: "Elbow. [pointing at elbow]. Zai yi tsi."
Teacher: "Oh! Hoa! [proceeds to demonstrate scary elbow move on Classmate]"
Classmate: [frowns and backs away]
- Sigh.
- Went to check out that huge other department store thing (it's this huge cylindrical blue building you can see from just about everywhere), and found out that it only goes to, oh, 6 floors, and the other 10 or 20 or whatever are completely useless because of some money conflict from some time back. It looks like some giant landmark building and is a complete waste.
- All of the reconstruction around here is seeming a bit redundant. They tore up a whole stretch of university sidewalk the other day. The only thing I can see happening is it being replaced by a slightly redder, brickier sidewalk.
Day 31: Fri., 7/25
- Biked to school, learned a few Chinese-netspeak additions (5201314 = I love you forever; OTR = head-meet-floor, or OTH. I feel like I should know this. I love making little people out of letters).
- Had an egg-covered curry rice for lunch. A lot of dishes here involve throwing an egg over everything. Then again, the eggs are the freshest of eggs. Most are sitting out in boxes; they don't need to be refrigerated because they never even went through that step. Straight from the market. The 'early market', as opposed to the 'night market', is where you get all your fresh produce; veggies, fruits, maybe even a great deal on a shirt or two.
- Improved my calligraphy a bit.
- Had dinner at the in-hospital restaurant. Excellent meal.
- Biked home. I'm getting better at dodging cars and not being freaked out by motorcycles squeezing past impossible spaces, and managed to get home surprisingly fast.
- That doesn't actually help me, since it was recently pointed out to me that eating one thing of bread (best breakfast food ever, still) takes 20 mins. of biking to burn off.
Day 32: Sat., 7/26
- Had a relaxing day, went to an afternoon market (these are on weekends, in the same place as the night markets, except you can get flowers and other foodstuffs), swim-cap buying (the hair-covering thingers are required before entering public pools), swimming (apparently the pool/area has been renovated a lot recently, it was really nice), going out to a Japanese restaurant, bit of rain, typhoon warning again...
Day 33: Sun., 7/27
- Visited a cemetery of sorts, weaving through huge stone monument-like dedications to the deceased, along with rows of smaller polished stone tombs to get to my grandparents' tomb.
- Found my name etched on the back, along with the rest of the family's.
- Got a first-time look at my mom's parents in the photos on the stone.
- I'm seeing a definite parallel with the stone used in these cemeteries and the reflective stone of that Vietnam veterans memorial.
- Went to Evergarden for dinner, a restaurant in a hotel building, then wandered around to some performance building near it. Saw a poster; Paul Potts will be here!
- ...In October.
- While my aunt and uncle hurried back to watch Fantastic Four ("It's 9:00! buy some popcorn, let's get back!"), I filmed my cousins doing reenactments of Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog.
- It's plain to see...the evil inside of me....is on the rise. Sorry, can't help myself. It won't get out of my head.
- Ended the day finding out tomorrow has been announced as a national 'typhoon day', kind of like a snow day, with all schools and offices and whatnot closing until further notice.
Day 34: Mon., 7/28
- Typhoon Day; outside of gusty rainy wind, Tainan wasn't hit too badly, so we mini-roadtripped to Kaohsiung, a big tourist hit for their national park land and beaches and markets and closeness to Taiwan's southernmost point.
- We went to the Dream Mall, which has a big TV screen installed in the side of the building and a ferris wheel on the roof (the woes of visiting on a rainy day means we only got to stare up at it from beneath the glass ceiling.
- Went to IKEA, which wasn't too different from my IKEA visits in Taoyuan, except that there was a huge sale going on.
- Went to Costco. Filled to the rafters with shoppers and not-so-filled with samples. The few samples there were required lining up; and the lines were long.
- So we lined up.
- And got our little dried seaweed wrapped bit of rice, and bought a box of Costco muffins (only difference being that one of the main flavors here is almond-mango).
- Other differences: the Costco here is two stories and the little eating area doesn't sell churros and pizza.
Day 35: Tues., 7/29
- Back to class, in which I learned that we'd be having final exams, a transcript, and a mini going-away party.
- Other things I learned include the following:
> KTV (karaoke) hangouts are the main party place. Most have adhered-to guidelines that make it non-negatively-connoted, especially to parents. [The thought of rephrasing that brings loopy ropes to mind, so use your powers of selective reading.]
> Bars/pubs are hangouts for tired old people.
> College girls who smoked were considered progressive.
> College guys who smoked were considered people to stay away from.
> Public smoking is less of an issue now, what with the $2000NT per smoke fine if you're reported smoking by anyone.
We're also away from the social pressure of saying "Bless you" here. A sneeze is just a sneeze.
Things are good.
Last three days of class coming up.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Days of Tainan (Week Two)
Week Two in Tainan. Bring on the heat. Bring on the AC. Bring on the vocab terms.
Day 21: Tues., 7/15
- Lost a new student, gained a new student. A Russian guy we had lunch with last Friday joined our class today. I was looking forward to Russian-accented Chinese, which didn't happen. Despite the internationality, everyone's English is much more accented than their Chinese (no Chinese accents though, only 'American' accents). Whether that's due to precise schooling or a lesser degree of accent-able-ness, I don't know.
- Had dumplings and potstickers for lunch, plus some 7-11 takeout. Found out that ordering take-out at the dumplings place would've been about 10 times faster. Generally food service here is really fast (whether fast food or no), but I guess the lunch rush meant taking a big group of friends to the indoor sitting area with the AC puts out the assumption that we don't mind waiting an extra half hour while all the other customers are served.
- Played badminton.
- Lost.
- Bought really good bread. The bakeries here are all worth a visit. Especially since most have really...unique...cake designs.
- Ate really good bread.
- Had dumplings and noodle soup for dinner.
- Finished off a foodful day with some fresh peaches. Mmm.
Day 22: Wed., 7/16
- Lunch at a place with really good kong bao ji ding fried rice. Repeated previous non-take-out-ness and waited for a while before the food came. These places always seem to be extremely understaffed and overflowing with customers come lunch hour.
- Learned to sing some Chinese songs in the post-lunch session of class. (Apparently there's plenty here: www.wretch.cc/blog/stumbling. I recommend starting with the song called "I don't know how to sing" like we did. It's nice. Catchy. Easy to badly sing.)
- Chinese painting class started today. The teacher speaks 13 languages and was invited to be part of some exclusive Beijing art exhibit during the Olympics. Art is his hobby.
- Learned that the concept of 1 and 0, 'something' and 'empty space' is important in Chinese philosophy and art. The example used was that friendship without a bit of distance is no good, just as the white spaces in the painting can show promise or having places to go, the other point being that if you plan on drawing out everything, you might as well take a picture of it.
- Drew my own version of empty space and random scribbles, which inevitably turned into distant mountains and a big river.
- Drew some little flying birds to fill the empty space up a bit.
- Drew a big, pretty tree. The teacher added big branches. It began to look like an actual, very pretty tree.
- Went out to dinner at a Thai restaurant called PaPaYa. Big dinner-y portions, proportionately more expensive. Largest portions I've seen in a while. Good green curry.
- Dinner buddies: a middle-aged German man, a friendly girl from Maine, a talkative guy from California, and Paul from Tai Chi. Conversation was 98% English, a bit of German, and some Chinese on the side.
- Began reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. Am beginning to understand sister better.
- Apologies for the many grammar lapses in this blog.
Day 23: Thurs., 7/17
- Tai chi again, except indoors because of the rain.
- Pseudotranslating went something like this:
Teacher (in Chinese): "Even girls can use this position and have strength."
Me (in English): "Even weaker people can use this kind of strength."
*Demonstrates on me, showing that the cool stance we've been learning means we've turned into immovable rocks. Or very unsteady ones, when he chooses to demonstrate his own offensive move.*
- We've learned about 25 moves in our tai chi routine and began learning the practical importance of some of the more mystifying movements. Demos are fun.
- Key points: Use your chi, your will, not your arm strength. Everything is in the legs and waist, and once you move your chi to different parts of your body, you can push anyone over with a light push of your strategically positioned hands. It's kind of cool to feel yourself being pushed over with what feels like no strength used at all.
- And is also an important aspect of Chinese culture, and all that. A very equal-opportunity kung fu. Very relaxing.
- Sat down and realized the area was swarming with mosquitoes. (It's less noticeable when concentrating on one's tai chi form.)
- I now have 12 mosquito bites. On each leg. It's a bit gruesome.
- Went to a great hotpot dinner place, which I've been hearing recommended for a while. It's called the "tsou tsou guo", or basically the "very smelly hotpot", their famous item. Don't forget to try the chunk of duck blood in the hotpot. Supposedly even better than the pig's blood.
Day 24: Fri., 7/18
- Typhoon alert. Spent the day watching torrents of rain gust around the window sills and water seeping over the floor of our fifth floor classroom.
- Ordered in for lunch.
Thing of note: Nobody tips here. But food-wise, free delivery is offered at almost every store. They will bike you a cup of juice to make about [U.S.] 30 cents on that beverage. Power to the customer, but sucks for some of those seriously understaffed, overworked little food shops that we love.
- Calligraphy class. I am truly awful at calligraphy. I lack patience and grace with a brush. I can't get the freaking thing to draw a straight, unfuzzy line.
- The people next to me experimented with Korean and English, and eventually settled on drawing flags with the brush. I drew a bird. A splotchy, ungraceful but conveniently fluffy bird.
- Parts of Taiwan are severely flooding. Because of all the [likely contaminated] rainfall, water's been shut down all over the city.
- Braved the rain [apparently along with many lines of people] and had really good 'little broth dumplings [shao long tang bao]", basically like those little steamed dumplings except with a bit of soup inside. Really, really good.
- I also love the fruit here. All of my fruit allergies have failed to surface. I could live here just for the fruit and the bakeries and the streets of affordable shops. If only it weren't for the mosquitoes. And the heat. And the traffic. And the inability to communicate in the right language.
- Additional [less relevant] Taiwan observations of today.
Day 25: Sat., 7/19
- Exclusive, one-time (mornings only) opportunity! FISH. Every part for breakfast. Apparently another famed food place, get your fish balls, fish soup, fish stomach and intestines right here!
- Yeah, that was my breakfast.
- A few more photo albums, linked on the sidebar (right), [ETA] from badminton tournaments to to bridges to tai chi and tombs, "Tainan Snapshot Central."
- Shin Kong Mitsukoshi of Tainan, bigger, just as expensive, and with massage chairs! And more samples than Costco. Lots of 'biotea' and pastry bits.
- More bread! More green mango ice popsicles! More singing! More rain!
- More historical sites; we're living in the central district of Tainan. Tainan is very historical. The former narrow horse road alleys are more prominent here than Taipei, as are the random ancient arches and pretty rooftops.
- Visited Cheng Kung Temple, and learned the sordid history of proud suicide that trails it.
- Visited Confucius Temple. More honoring the famed dead. Just don't go to these temples during lunch break, or the tour guides won't be there to show you around. Make your experience worth the dollar you pay. (Well, free for Tainan residents, so the alternative is to steal someone's ID).
Day 26: Sun., 7/20
- Got up early to go to church. They gave me a free book, made me stand up to be applauded, and got a bit up close and personal praying for me to come back and pray.
- I'm never going back.
- The purpose of it all was so that I could go with the whole family to a lamb restaurant.
- I dislike lamb. A lot.
- Had lunch at a place that believes in cooking all parts of lamb, and only all parts of lamb, stewed or sliced or seasoned in various ways. What with requiring a reservation and whatnot, it's considered a pretty good place. They made the lamb almost palatable. Mm.
- Met my mom's older brother (RIP) 's wife and two sons. They have an iguana and severely stained walls, and are a nice bunch. One son's off to the army, this week I believe.
- Walked to a nice little ice dessert place, where they sell crushed ice drizzled with syrupy sugar topping various gummyish dessert scoops of your choice. They have it in the U.S., possibly in a Chinatown in California for a ridiculously expensive price. So, get it here. It's everywhere.
- We played mah-jong. I re-familiarized myself with it and had a streak of beginner's luck and won lots of money. The agreement here is that the winner of the most money treats everyone to dinner, though, so I didn't win that much.
- I should add that the general considered age of adulthood here is 20. Most families that I've experienced are pretty lax about sampling alcohol. Smoking doesn't seem as much of an issue, though the healthy living placards are everywhere. Gambling....I'll have to check up on that. I think my grandpa was a police officer who specifically dealt with illegal gambling.
- Pizza Hut for dinner. Pizza and Pepsi. Hmm. That and the Wii on the side made it almost like home. Where I would be sitting on the couch, probably sleeping half my summer away. Ah. Life is good.
Day 27: Mon., 7/21
- Started the day off writing a last-minute essay on my recollection of Taiwan when I was last here, over ten years ago. Feel free to compare.
- Said goodbye to a classmate forced to leave early due to plane ticketing issues. Had a mini farewell photo montage with a playback of our class singing a Chinese song in the background.
- Had a Subway-ish lunch, except not Subway, because Subway and Starbucks seem to have closed down in many new and exciting ways in Taiwan, compared to more popular '85.C' coffee and 'bien dan (lunch as a quick rice/meat/veggie combo)' places.
- Had ourselves a 'bien dan' dinner.
Day 28: Tues., 7/22
- Went shopping at "Focus," a 12 or 13 story department store mall type thing. Bought a couple dresses, again for 90% off. It's really only affordable when it's 90% off.
- Shopping is convenient here mostly because whole streets are selling comparable items; one street has all the digital stuff, one street has mostly food, one street is lined with shoes. It makes asking for directions easy, too. ("Where can I buy a Ch/Eng translator?" "At that street, which sells everything electronic, across from the Tainan station.")
- Went to the night market again, and tried more probably less healthy food. I only say that because it tasted so good. And was undoubtedly fried.
- Our second teacher found out we were getting tests and homework everyday in our first class, and now seems to feel she needs to start thinking about giving us a test, or *gasp* homework.
- I don't think she realizes the vocab games we play (so, so intensely; it's like half Egyptian Ratscrew, half character recognition testing) put us under more pressure to learn the stuff. And is more challenging, because it's the harder class, material-wise, anyway. In fact, most of the terms we've been learning lately are apparently so obscure they aren't recognizable to the native speaker without some extra clarification.
- Yay, us.
Day 21: Tues., 7/15
- Lost a new student, gained a new student. A Russian guy we had lunch with last Friday joined our class today. I was looking forward to Russian-accented Chinese, which didn't happen. Despite the internationality, everyone's English is much more accented than their Chinese (no Chinese accents though, only 'American' accents). Whether that's due to precise schooling or a lesser degree of accent-able-ness, I don't know.
- Had dumplings and potstickers for lunch, plus some 7-11 takeout. Found out that ordering take-out at the dumplings place would've been about 10 times faster. Generally food service here is really fast (whether fast food or no), but I guess the lunch rush meant taking a big group of friends to the indoor sitting area with the AC puts out the assumption that we don't mind waiting an extra half hour while all the other customers are served.
- Played badminton.
- Lost.
- Bought really good bread. The bakeries here are all worth a visit. Especially since most have really...unique...cake designs.
- Ate really good bread.
- Had dumplings and noodle soup for dinner.
- Finished off a foodful day with some fresh peaches. Mmm.
Day 22: Wed., 7/16
- Lunch at a place with really good kong bao ji ding fried rice. Repeated previous non-take-out-ness and waited for a while before the food came. These places always seem to be extremely understaffed and overflowing with customers come lunch hour.
- Learned to sing some Chinese songs in the post-lunch session of class. (Apparently there's plenty here: www.wretch.cc/blog/stumbling. I recommend starting with the song called "I don't know how to sing" like we did. It's nice. Catchy. Easy to badly sing.)
- Chinese painting class started today. The teacher speaks 13 languages and was invited to be part of some exclusive Beijing art exhibit during the Olympics. Art is his hobby.
- Learned that the concept of 1 and 0, 'something' and 'empty space' is important in Chinese philosophy and art. The example used was that friendship without a bit of distance is no good, just as the white spaces in the painting can show promise or having places to go, the other point being that if you plan on drawing out everything, you might as well take a picture of it.
- Drew my own version of empty space and random scribbles, which inevitably turned into distant mountains and a big river.
- Drew some little flying birds to fill the empty space up a bit.
- Drew a big, pretty tree. The teacher added big branches. It began to look like an actual, very pretty tree.
- Went out to dinner at a Thai restaurant called PaPaYa. Big dinner-y portions, proportionately more expensive. Largest portions I've seen in a while. Good green curry.
- Dinner buddies: a middle-aged German man, a friendly girl from Maine, a talkative guy from California, and Paul from Tai Chi. Conversation was 98% English, a bit of German, and some Chinese on the side.
- Began reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. Am beginning to understand sister better.
- Apologies for the many grammar lapses in this blog.
Day 23: Thurs., 7/17
- Tai chi again, except indoors because of the rain.
- Pseudotranslating went something like this:
Teacher (in Chinese): "Even girls can use this position and have strength."
Me (in English): "Even weaker people can use this kind of strength."
*Demonstrates on me, showing that the cool stance we've been learning means we've turned into immovable rocks. Or very unsteady ones, when he chooses to demonstrate his own offensive move.*
- We've learned about 25 moves in our tai chi routine and began learning the practical importance of some of the more mystifying movements. Demos are fun.
- Key points: Use your chi, your will, not your arm strength. Everything is in the legs and waist, and once you move your chi to different parts of your body, you can push anyone over with a light push of your strategically positioned hands. It's kind of cool to feel yourself being pushed over with what feels like no strength used at all.
- And is also an important aspect of Chinese culture, and all that. A very equal-opportunity kung fu. Very relaxing.
- Sat down and realized the area was swarming with mosquitoes. (It's less noticeable when concentrating on one's tai chi form.)
- I now have 12 mosquito bites. On each leg. It's a bit gruesome.
- Went to a great hotpot dinner place, which I've been hearing recommended for a while. It's called the "tsou tsou guo", or basically the "very smelly hotpot", their famous item. Don't forget to try the chunk of duck blood in the hotpot. Supposedly even better than the pig's blood.
Day 24: Fri., 7/18
- Typhoon alert. Spent the day watching torrents of rain gust around the window sills and water seeping over the floor of our fifth floor classroom.
- Ordered in for lunch.
Thing of note: Nobody tips here. But food-wise, free delivery is offered at almost every store. They will bike you a cup of juice to make about [U.S.] 30 cents on that beverage. Power to the customer, but sucks for some of those seriously understaffed, overworked little food shops that we love.
- Calligraphy class. I am truly awful at calligraphy. I lack patience and grace with a brush. I can't get the freaking thing to draw a straight, unfuzzy line.
- The people next to me experimented with Korean and English, and eventually settled on drawing flags with the brush. I drew a bird. A splotchy, ungraceful but conveniently fluffy bird.
- Parts of Taiwan are severely flooding. Because of all the [likely contaminated] rainfall, water's been shut down all over the city.
- Braved the rain [apparently along with many lines of people] and had really good 'little broth dumplings [shao long tang bao]", basically like those little steamed dumplings except with a bit of soup inside. Really, really good.
- I also love the fruit here. All of my fruit allergies have failed to surface. I could live here just for the fruit and the bakeries and the streets of affordable shops. If only it weren't for the mosquitoes. And the heat. And the traffic. And the inability to communicate in the right language.
- Additional [less relevant] Taiwan observations of today.
Day 25: Sat., 7/19
- Exclusive, one-time (mornings only) opportunity! FISH. Every part for breakfast. Apparently another famed food place, get your fish balls, fish soup, fish stomach and intestines right here!
- Yeah, that was my breakfast.
- A few more photo albums, linked on the sidebar (right), [ETA] from badminton tournaments to to bridges to tai chi and tombs, "Tainan Snapshot Central."
- Shin Kong Mitsukoshi of Tainan, bigger, just as expensive, and with massage chairs! And more samples than Costco. Lots of 'biotea' and pastry bits.
- More bread! More green mango ice popsicles! More singing! More rain!
- More historical sites; we're living in the central district of Tainan. Tainan is very historical. The former narrow horse road alleys are more prominent here than Taipei, as are the random ancient arches and pretty rooftops.
- Visited Cheng Kung Temple, and learned the sordid history of proud suicide that trails it.
- Visited Confucius Temple. More honoring the famed dead. Just don't go to these temples during lunch break, or the tour guides won't be there to show you around. Make your experience worth the dollar you pay. (Well, free for Tainan residents, so the alternative is to steal someone's ID).
Day 26: Sun., 7/20
- Got up early to go to church. They gave me a free book, made me stand up to be applauded, and got a bit up close and personal praying for me to come back and pray.
- I'm never going back.
- The purpose of it all was so that I could go with the whole family to a lamb restaurant.
- I dislike lamb. A lot.
- Had lunch at a place that believes in cooking all parts of lamb, and only all parts of lamb, stewed or sliced or seasoned in various ways. What with requiring a reservation and whatnot, it's considered a pretty good place. They made the lamb almost palatable. Mm.
- Met my mom's older brother (RIP) 's wife and two sons. They have an iguana and severely stained walls, and are a nice bunch. One son's off to the army, this week I believe.
- Walked to a nice little ice dessert place, where they sell crushed ice drizzled with syrupy sugar topping various gummyish dessert scoops of your choice. They have it in the U.S., possibly in a Chinatown in California for a ridiculously expensive price. So, get it here. It's everywhere.
- We played mah-jong. I re-familiarized myself with it and had a streak of beginner's luck and won lots of money. The agreement here is that the winner of the most money treats everyone to dinner, though, so I didn't win that much.
- I should add that the general considered age of adulthood here is 20. Most families that I've experienced are pretty lax about sampling alcohol. Smoking doesn't seem as much of an issue, though the healthy living placards are everywhere. Gambling....I'll have to check up on that. I think my grandpa was a police officer who specifically dealt with illegal gambling.
- Pizza Hut for dinner. Pizza and Pepsi. Hmm. That and the Wii on the side made it almost like home. Where I would be sitting on the couch, probably sleeping half my summer away. Ah. Life is good.
Day 27: Mon., 7/21
- Started the day off writing a last-minute essay on my recollection of Taiwan when I was last here, over ten years ago. Feel free to compare.
- Said goodbye to a classmate forced to leave early due to plane ticketing issues. Had a mini farewell photo montage with a playback of our class singing a Chinese song in the background.
- Had a Subway-ish lunch, except not Subway, because Subway and Starbucks seem to have closed down in many new and exciting ways in Taiwan, compared to more popular '85.C' coffee and 'bien dan (lunch as a quick rice/meat/veggie combo)' places.
- Had ourselves a 'bien dan' dinner.
Day 28: Tues., 7/22
- Went shopping at "Focus," a 12 or 13 story department store mall type thing. Bought a couple dresses, again for 90% off. It's really only affordable when it's 90% off.
- Shopping is convenient here mostly because whole streets are selling comparable items; one street has all the digital stuff, one street has mostly food, one street is lined with shoes. It makes asking for directions easy, too. ("Where can I buy a Ch/Eng translator?" "At that street, which sells everything electronic, across from the Tainan station.")
- Went to the night market again, and tried more probably less healthy food. I only say that because it tasted so good. And was undoubtedly fried.
- Our second teacher found out we were getting tests and homework everyday in our first class, and now seems to feel she needs to start thinking about giving us a test, or *gasp* homework.
- I don't think she realizes the vocab games we play (so, so intensely; it's like half Egyptian Ratscrew, half character recognition testing) put us under more pressure to learn the stuff. And is more challenging, because it's the harder class, material-wise, anyway. In fact, most of the terms we've been learning lately are apparently so obscure they aren't recognizable to the native speaker without some extra clarification.
- Yay, us.
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